to not want to be treated like an idiot just because I work in a shop!

[zisforzebra]

I'm currently working in a shop. Before I started working there I had no idea just how rude people can be. Lots don't say please or thank you and some don't acknowledge me at all and practically throw the money at me. But the worst are the ones that treat me like I have no brain at all.

A woman came in today and said she wanted to learn to crochet and that she wasn't very good at knitting. She asked me if I could crochet and I said yes. Her response was a sneery "Well if you can do it, I'm sure I can". I wanted to say that I'm a bloody good knitter and not bad at crochet either and she should just bugger off with her judgements but I just smiled and sent her in the direction of a library for a book on crochet.

AIBU to be very pissed off?

YANBU. have worked in a shop and as a Receptionist. I have an exceptionally fine brain and am really rather nice, but some people like to treat anyone who is serving them as a lesser form of life.

no yanbu but some people are twats, not surprising you'd come across a few

YANBU, you see the worst of them in shops. I found it even worse as a female manager as then you get unhappy people saying in a condescending manner "can I speak to the manager" and you say "I am the manager" and they look at you like they just wiped you from their shoe.

It won't get any better, all you can do is learn to ignore it and rise above. When working in my shop I was threatened (7 months pregnant at the time!) and regularly sworn at.

Once you leave, you never go back!

YANBU! I worked in a shop in Knightsbridge once. Everyone who worked the shop floor had a Uni. degree and the customers treated us like total idiots.

I vivdly remember someone asking me for a pair of something or other one, then kindly explaining 'That's TWO'. I just said 'Yes, thanks, I have a science degree. I can count'. Luckily the manager didn't hear me .

Madam - that's an interesting story. When I was an NHS receptionist, my boss used to occasionally cover Reception when I was on a course. It was a real eye-opener for her, and the Physio's, who saw how she was treated ...

YANBU, but welcome to the world of retail.

yes, we are generally perceived as being the lowest of the low and the thickest of the thick.

this is not helped at all by some shop assistants actually being as described.
tars the brush for the rest of us.

you'll get used to it.

just remember to be realy snottish and mean when you get an incompetant when you're out shopping (it gets to you like that )

Yanbu. Sometimes I've felt that they see me as part of the shop fittings rather than an actual person. People can be very rude, but then so can some shop assistants, can't they? And as for Ryanair ground staff, four of them at the Customer Service desk talking about what they got up to at the weekend while they could see I was waiting... rant rant

No you are not.

I am always taken aback to see how many people appear to beleive that parting with their hard-earned cash seems to entitle them to treat people like shit. Paying for a service does not mean paying to treat people like servants.

but, Orm, they shouldn't treat their servants like shit, anyway.

we are their servants, but we are human beings who want to help them and we deserve to be treated with respect.

I've had the same happen when I worked as a waitress backpacking around Oz - I also felt like wearing a badge saying "I do have a degree you know!"

I have worked in a very male dominated industry in the past. I deliberately used to sign my letters without any title - and without fail callers would ask to speak to Mr Decorhate when they phoned. Of course sometimes it was useful to pretend to be "just" the secretary when they wanted to complain about something!

No you aren't servants nickel. You are people who have been paid to provide a service, that isn't the same thing. You wouldn't treat a plumber or a teacher in that way. Should be the same for retail.

BTW no I agree servants are not supposed to be abused either but you know what I mean.

Exactly, Madam

okay, orm, i get what you mean.

i did the Burger King thing when i was at Uni.
got treated like they thought i was a spotty teenager and they expected me to be completely crap and rude.
surprisingly, i was not crap and rude, but an exemplary member of staff. and i used to add up people's orders in my head so that they would realize that i wasn't a stupid moron either.

YANBU at all, OP.

But do be careful not to get a chip on your shoulder about it. Not saying that you do have a chip on your shoulder but it can be very easy to assume that people are rude to you because of your job, whereas actually they are just plain rude.

This reminds me of when I worked in thecatering trade (have also done retail). I was working at a very nice four star hotel. The Duty Manager for the evening was one of the restaurant supervisors. She was very capable, but quite young too. She ws dealing with a customer who was complaining about something, I don't really remember what. After lots of her trying to speak with him and deal with the situation, he asked to speak to a proper manager. By which he meant somebody a0 older and b) male

I still think that the management did the wrong thing by wheeling out an older male manager to deal with it. He should have come out and told the guest that she was the manager at that time, and she would be dealing with it.

People in general are nice. But the PUBLIC sucks.

I used to work in a supermarket and I remember one woman who always had a soor face on her and came complaining to me at the customer service desk every week without fail.

Then one weekend, I was playing with a ceilidh band at a wedding, and low and behold, she was one of the guests.

Next time she came in the shop, she was nice as pie and said "it was you playing at that wedding wasn't it?" and after that, she was always nice, stopped moaning at me and smiled.

Why did it make one bit of difference to her that I could play the fiddle? Why? I just don't get it.

I have vowed never to work with the public ever again. This is only one example of a huge variety of nonsense that I had to deal with....

YANBU

I worked in various shops and bars when a student and frequently got treated really badly by customers.

I worked in a High Street record shop once and the run-up to Xmas, as you can imagine, was pretty busy. If we had a really, really vile customer in we'd deliberately put the wrong CD in the case (it was in the days where only the empty cases were on the shelves and we had to get the right CD to go in it from behind the counter).

I took great delight in putting a thrash metal CD into the classical CD case of one particularly obnxious bloke.

YOu get the same kind of treatment working in a bar, as well. I once very politely asked a customer "excuse me, would you mind moving to one side as you are blocking the way in/out from behind the bar", and I needed to bring in a big tray of heavy dirty glasses. He ignored me, so I adjusted the heavy tray and asked politely again. He turned round, puce in the face and said
"How dare you speak to me like that, I pay your wages". I explained the situation again, and instead of moving so I could get back behind the bar, he demanded to speak to the manager.

She told him I was an exemplary member of staff and that if he didn't move he would have to leave the bar. I was a medical student at the time, I often wonder if he would feel that he paid my wages now as a doctor, and if he would have spoken to me like that in a hospital. Probably!

anyway, OP, YANBU, but unfortuately I think some people are just plain rude. Oh and I second what otter said about the chip!

I get this...am a receptionist, people spell everything.,."thats Mr, M. R" etc...

Have one woman who orders me around "get me this" etc.

I can't quite shoehorn it into the conversation that I needed to be able to spell to get into Oxford.